getting back in the saddle

Perhaps it's natural for everyone to take a break from any sort of regular tasks that they have to do with her that's their sports training, their housework, even their family. Perhaps that's not universal ;-)

Regardless of other people's experiences and needs, I'm certainly a person needs to stick a break from writing a while, quickly at the end of a major project. That's where I have been lately.

So – at the risk of sounding like I come from Amarillo, Texas – I guess it's time to get back in the saddle!

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I would like to think a little bit about starting rituals in the few minutes that I have before starting my  "important" tasks. Would a particular can relate his the experience of waking up this morning and trying to get myself into "the writing chair."  On the positive side, there is something conducive to writing about a quiet house occupied only by the home of the various refrigerators, air conditioners, dehumidifiers, and electric fans of summer. This is a house that's free of the beeping of personal digital assistants built into our cell phones, and the prattling on of the "entertainment" on television,  the squeaks and screams of elementary school boy(s), and even the mundane, daily chit chat that grows to represent love within the family.

Waking up this morning and looking around the house, I realized that it  required – and perhaps will always require – a great deal of effort as a temporary single father to complete and overcome the daily life tasks in the room of things like:

• picking up the scattered refuse, the detritus, that seems to trail behind the fifth-grade boy;
• folding up and putting away the closed seem to have been hanging on the drying racks for as long as you can remember;
• washing and putting away the piles of dishes that seem to propagate like slime mold faster than you can ever paid it back;
• and well: social media .

In the end, getting to writing for me at least, and this morning at least, involved willfully forcing myself to look away from the handful of Tupperware that appeared in the sink out of yesterday's lunch box, the important work tasks that lie opened and half finished on my computer's desktop, and the family members who have their own hopes and plans for this little bit of free time early in the morning.

getting organized for fixing messy drafts

For this week's task, I actually have to have some product in front of me. Which I don't actually have at the moment.

 so for tomorrow I need to set my hands on products that I went to work on one to revise, organize and I'm guessing later on I will want to edit. So what are those products that are close enough to mess with?

• I have that one folder of something from my dissertation that I want to cut out.
• My dissertation itself needs to be  reformed and turned into an article.
•  I'm going to consider the work that I'm doing on Xiaofang's paper as part of this process.
• Given that caveat, there are other papers that I could work on in the same way including  Tom Clark's, and HJ's
•  a third possibility is to actually generate some text from either of the other two papers that I'm working on.

Okay that wasn't very much time, but it has been sometime editing :-).   [Xiaofang's paper]

writing quickly, again

Another session of freewriting.

Unfortunately, I have some freewriting thoughts in my head that are not directly related to the actual paper that I need to write, or any of the actual papers that I need to write. The thoughts that are running through my head are about how I am falling into the wrong direction with regards to blocking off my writing time.

I could go into detail about all of the things that I've been doing that are wrong,  but… I changed my mind, so okay lets go into those things that I've been doing that are counterproductive to writing:

• So I am not actually getting up in the morning. 
• I am putting off writing sessions to do trivial things like computer games. 
• I am putting family needs above writing needs. And that includes cases where the family needs themselves are trivial, they could wait 20 minutes for me to spend some time writing.
• And honestly, I haven't been focusing on this artificial writing task.

On the positive side:

• I have been able to do some of the writing tasks that need to get done which are not associated with the actual generation of a manuscript. By that I mean, that I have been able to spend some time on coding.
• I have been able to spend some time developing the project that needs to be developed for the memorized project.
•  In addition to that I have been able to do some work on editing Xiaofang's  paper.

So where does that leave me? I think that leaves me with going back to the rules. So,

• I am going to try and spend a couple of minutes of non-writing time before I begin writing time with deep breathing/meditation for a couple of minutes.
• I am going to elicit the support of the people in my family in working together so that I can have writing time and they will attempt to delay trivial interruptions to help me out with that.
• I am going to do my best to put aside the distractive toys that are embedded within my electronic devices that I used to do my writing.
• I am going to do my best to get to bed early. This will allow me to hopefully, wake up early
• In addition, I will try to do some time in the evening that will take care of the family responsibilities and household chores that our mind do. I will work on doing those tasks as as Pomodoro activities and try and spend 15 minutes or 20 minutes doing one, take a short break and then begin another task until they are all completed.
• I will recognize that some of the other tasks that are leading me down line of depression are beyond my control. 
• There is no way that I can do anything at all about what my administrators' are doing on the specific tasks. 
• Moreover, no amount of complaining or persuasion is really going to have any effect on them or change their mind. will

new stage: writing quickly

 I am not really ready for the free writing activity, but I'm committed to doing it.

What am I worried about particularly in getting these things written? I have at least three projects that are active. As I write this out, I will probably probably figure out that I have more than three. The three projects that come to mind are: the Second  Language/Third Cultures project with Ines, the memorize project with Ron, the editing of Xiaofang's thesis paper in order to send it out for publication. Now that I'm thinking, some additional projects that I would like to keep working on include: the revision of what I have been working on for my PhD dissertation, and the new project using Memrise in the classroom that I've been developing with Brandon and Justin. Both of those projects are in completely different stages, with the dissertation revision project actually just being a case of restructuring and revising for submission to the journal, whereas the Memrise project is just at the ground floor stages. However, I do feel like Justin and Brandon are much more competent collaborators in many ways in terms of understanding how research works than was the case with Ron.

So listing the projects, how does that help me move forward in terms of working on each one of? I think the first thing I wanted to do is make sure that I spend a little bit of time each day working on each of them. I wonder how to do that best? In some ways I think I might be better off trying to have three or four small writing blocks during the course of the day that I could get something to each project. Instead of what I can to do which is focused too much on one project and then get burned out on it. So I think  that what I want to do right now is finish the five minutes of free writing time, and then work directly on the coding that I need to do for the project on the second language and third culture.  (editing ended) And that would involve using to do's. In regards to the other two projects, that are fairly active, I just need to sit down for 30 minutes each day to the revision on Chalfant's thesis. So that will give me going in the right direction. Can I go back and be out of order for a minute I really need to force myself to get one of the transcripts edited each day for the second research culture project because I'm just not even getting one done in the course of a week.

The other project getting back on order again is the new project with memorized. The materials need to be set up and made available for the participants that's the first thing. The second thing I need to do now I think that's can be the first thing that I need to do which is to contact Jamie and see if she's willing to be data entry person for us.  five minutes are up.

strategies to overcome obstacles to writing IV

strategies to overcome obstacles to writing IV

This will be the last time that I will revisit this question of "how do I overcome the obstacles that I make and have to academic writing."

One thing that I haven't put down his perhaps the biggest thing that might be a strategy to overcome obstacles to writing. Ultimately, it's rather simple to conceive, although it may prove to be difficult to execute. Writing success, actual publication, regular rather than intermittent publication seems to me like it would prove to be more of an "obstacle breaker" than perhaps anything else I could conceive of in terms of rules or strategies. I am starting.

Before I go into the actual writing tasks that are unrelated to this philosophical writing task, I will look back over the rules that I've made in previous three posts and see how I'm doing on those regulations. I feel like I've been doing okay, but let me pause and look to see how I'm doing
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On the first day I decided to promise to regulate my "starting rituals." I seem to be doing okay with that, but it still quite hard – I remember my father describing -- after quitting smoking -- how he was still reaching in his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes 10 years after "kicking the habit." I wonder if those "procrastination habits" will be something like that. Will they be like the shape of the whiskey bottle to an alcoholic? [Forgive me for the inappropriate metaphor]

On the second day, I was hoping to meditate before I started writing. I didn't work out nearly as well as I had hoped it would. Too late now for today, but I will do my best tomorrow to start in the right emotional and psychological state of mind in order to clear my head of all the other crap. But I did do it on one day, it seemed to help make things work better. Today, however, Monday morning, it's a madhouse here, and I find myself walking around with my headset on dictating into the computer everybody gets ready for coming week. Perhaps this time block will not always work…

Finally, I am hoping to get  to bed early, or at least on time… Unfortunately, I haven't done very well at that at all. Last night was okay, but the night before was miserable in terms of staying up late and not getting to sleep… However, actually did a decent job writing yesterday, although it wasn't on the schedule :-(.

Looking back on today's writing, a lot of words fell out on the page in less time. That is certainly one of the goals of this project.

It was 25 minutes today.  This is last day; so I am going to add one last rule – continuing adding minutes, but breaking those minutes into the Pomodoro until I can be working on the order of two hours every day.

strategies to overcome obstacles to writing III

strategies to overcome obstacles to writing III

Today is supposed to be 24 minutes…

In some ways, I am recognizing that the biggest obstacle to my writing and publication is that last dirty bit: deciding it's time to write, and then getting the manuscript out. [I suppose there's a little bit after that which is the editing process, and even after that the review process; however, I'm stuck into projects right now the "now just write it!" Stage] So, my conclusion is that overcoming the inertia and getting words on the page IS a massive thing for me.

 Briefly, I will revisit those initial obstacles – at least that list that I generated initially – and think about the problem of "wanting to push the 'play' button instead of choosing to push the 'work' button."  I do not know that I have a good answer to this problem or a strategy to work on avoiding it.  Perhaps, this is a place where the "oneryness" skills might serve me well.  so far, in this get up and write every morning plan, I've missed a couple of days. And moreover those states have happened sort of randomly… Well in both cases it was after several consecutive days of writing – external factors seem to have a big impact on whether I was able to get up and do it as well. in both cases, one of the external factors was the fact that I simply couldn't get out of bed.

So that leads to another new rule:go to bed on time, or better yet early. I really have to go to bed at a reasonable hour especially after several days of cutting back on sleep. However, this may come into conflict with the other rule of washing the dishes before going bed ;-).

strategies to overcome obstacles to writing II

strategies to overcome obstacles to writing II

I am looking things I wrote yesterday and turned a focus on the new project idea of redefining what writing is. The tricky thing is writing all the time. An academic position, particularly a director position requires one to do a whole heck of a lot of writing. Many administrative tasks have to be communicated in writing, whether that's the plan for a project, so advertising copy, communicating with faculty, administration, students, prospects there's a lot of email that has got to be written…

But I don't consider that part of my academic writing. What I do want to consider part of my academic writing are all the things that lead to the publication of the paper. Right now, at least want to separate my "pure" reading time, from my "pure" writing time: The literature review meeting time from the literature review writing time; the discussion analysis time from the discussion writing time.

Regarding strategies to overcome obstacles:
-  What can I do about the fact that my head is clogged up with too many ideas?

•  new rule:
• take two minutes  at the start of the reading  block – actually add two minutes to the total right – and do a brief meditation.  Totally not me of course, but that traded before and it's not completely onerous :-).

•  Another new rule:
• now that the first of the "exercises" have settled in, be sure to spend some portion of the writing time [at least 10 minutes] doing some writing that will actually lead to the production of a paper. ....

strategies to overcome obstacles to writing

What strategies can I developed to overcome obstacles to writing?

[Reflecting back I want to call them: "the enemies of writing" ... maybe that should be in all caps and boldface:  THE ENEMIES OF WRITING!]

okay, so this is a link to what I wrote before.

But I think you have to look at them one at a time and try and develop strategies for them individually, because in some ways they are forces that work in opposition to one another. And in the end, I have to work at them one at a time to readjust my habits, to readjust my psyche. I think I am not going to go with them in order, however.

 New rules:

• no email until after the writing session is done
• coffee before the writing session starts
• if the dirty dishes are in the sink, they can be washed, but no other household chores – so try to wash them before going to bed.

New project: 

• use some of my writing time early on in this process to redefine my writing tasks. Which tasks are part of writing, which tasks are not part of writing? Determining how to allocate the amount of writing time that I have as part of the writing block.

 [Today was 22 minutes]

 

three things that make me write (and not write)

What are three things that make me write (and not write)?

Makes me write:

• Deadline
• Ornrey-ness
• feeling like I owe it to somebody else

Makes me NOT write:

• lack of confidence
• distraction
• other obligations [fires to be put out]

 I will come back to these tomorrow and the next day and see if I can come up with a few ideas for each one. In the meantime I want to get some individual writing projects so for the rest of  the time today I'm going to work on that letter that I promised to write for Oxxxxx.

how have I been treating my writing tools

How have I been treating my writing tools?

In this question, I'm having trouble with the metaphor. Is writing is a single tool, or a group of tools? What's the garden? Is the garden my writing in general? Is the garden my academic life?

Certainly come I feel like I spent a lot of my academic time sharpening the analytical tools, and practices of an academic: logic, precision, rigor, and of course being a curmudgeon.  And I'm actively engaged in conducting research projects However, I still can't integrate those elements completely into the writing process. By that I and saying that I think that conducting the research is still something that precedes the writing of the research. Looking specifically at the grounded theory study that I'm working on right now, I really know that I should be writing alone all along, but I am not doing that. In other words the act of putting words on paper on the other hand is something that I haven't been good at getting to.

Along the same lines, how do I conceptualize the "reading-part-of-research" as part of the writing process.  Intuitively at least in my head, it's something that precedes the writing.  this is the stage where he and many other CALL project.  Yet logically I know that it is actually part of the overall process of writing academic paper. Moreover, that it's possible to be writing while reading -- in the sense that the notes that we take as we read the relevant research on the topic are writing and are an element of that final product.

 So I know what to do … I need to get to it.

aspects of writing I dislike

What aspects of writing do I especially dislike?

My first reaction to this question is that there isn't anything particularly that I dislike about writing… That is to say that I don't find writing to be something that makes me feel bad, but if I had to say the thing that is "egregious" about writing I guess it would be the fact that your brain really has to be engaged when you write. Particularly me, I would guess.

If you will allow my educational psychology geek personality to take over  for a minute …  It would seem that my prefrontal cortex is really working quite hard when I write -- In the sort of sense that Daniel Kahneman is talking about in "Thinking Fast and Slow." The time when I'm writing is one of those times when all of those tendencies toward perfectionism seem to gather up steam and drop themselves in on me.

 Of course, it doesn't help that I can't particularly type, and though I'm currently using voice recognition software – which is not 100% accurate – the process of writing with your fingers and the process of writing with your voice really do seem quite different for me. I'm not sure how other people are, but the flow of thoughts and … and I guess we are back to the idea of perfectionism. When I speak to sentence, it's not the same as composing a sentence and thinking of how each letter must be struck from the keyboard. I suppose a real typist doesn't think that way when they are typing?

Thinking about the question again.

Writing is slow [Kahneman's system 2]. Writing requires patience. Writing requires revision and editing. These are things that can get your prefrontal cortex involved and expend real biological energy.  Ultimately, writing is often tiring. Looking back on your errors and imperfections can be humiliating.

Patricia Goodson's advice to "write fast and edit slow" is not exactly something that I've practiced in the past. It's my intent to make an effort to do just that.

aspects of writing I enjoy

What aspects of writing do I enjoy (most)?

[I wonder how many people going through these questions is the first initial response that I had choose something of the obverse of what E.B. White's character, Mr. Trexler, describes in Second Tree from the Corner when asked, "Have you ever had any bizarre thoughts?" . . .  He's completely scattered, anxious, feeling the pressure of the doctor's by, the doctor's position, the doctor's time . . .  . "Just reach into the bag and pick anything at all."]

•  perhaps it's a hazard of my occupation, but I'm thinking of the reward system in my brain, the idea that what I just did, that is, finding the connection between some previously encountered item (E.B. White's story), and something entirely different (this particular writing task I have at hand), and somehow fitting them together.  I think there are lots of pieces and feeling I was enjoying:
•  the initial reading and understanding of White's story,
• the activation of memory based on
• a new stimulus
• knowing how to retrieve the specific information is required going beyond just the recollection of the story and the paraphrase back down to
• accessing the Internet for the precise quote
• figuring out how to extract the best quote for the purpose
• knowing how to express that in writing in a way that communicates the precision of the quote ethically, fairly, accurately to the reader
•  [that went better than I thought it might have ;) ]
•  Then of course that's the joke we say about how being a professor and writing something down is more often than not about being "big me" versus "little you" . . . there can be a battle that occurs in writing
•  and now that I think, that battle occurs after the paper has been submitted, made of to face the battle with the  editors of the Journal interview process

it keeps me away from writing

What keeps me away from writing?

• Too many things in my head.  sometimes it is really hard to clear them out in order to get started on a project.
• Too many fires to put it in front of me.
• e-mails
• marketing
• student problems arising suddenly
•  drop-ins
•  the phone
• I like doing the other things in life, too. The level of inertia to get started on those sorts of things – going swimming, cooking dinner, playing a videogame – is remarkably less.
• Tasks that are part of writing that don't seem directly related to the goal of the final product can get forgotten (?), Or at least they don't seem like they come as readily, but they block the actual writing that needs to get done.
• Perhaps it's a stupid example, but starting to write an agenda for the faculty meeting required me to go and access the calendar in order to be up to provide faculty the key dates in the calendar that they need to be aware of. 
• Needing to sit down and read the articles as a part of doing the writing
• Needing to sit down and analyze data as part of doing the writing
• Needing to conceptualize a project for writing a proposal
•  needing to write the proposals/abstract for conferences which also doesn't feel like real writing
•  The place where  I do my writing, is also a place where I interact socially, relax as part of some of my leisure time, engage with  entertainment. In part, it makes it easier to click the "play" button rather than the "work" button.
• Lately, I have to admit to suffering from a general malaise. The sort of passion might normally drive me to start and finish a project just isn't there on many occasions.
•  Maybe the truth is, I don't really like many parts of this job.

Still, I think the biggest thing is that I've got too many projects I want to do. I feel like if I could get one or two or three of them out the door and clear off the general played a little bit that I could move forward on some of the others. So perhaps it's good for me to sit down and list out the projects that I have in my head that I wanted to and then train spent some time each week during the writing block working on individual projects.

So here's the list:

• Memrise
•  submit proposal to  FEELTA 
• Second and third
•  submit proposal to  FEELTA 
• Paper with Ms. Yang 
•  submit proposal to  FEELTA
•  Working on my dissertation ideas
•  Blogging kind of things
•  E.G. how not using technology is destroying the brains of adults
•  emotion ELT 
•  the brain and ELT

Lack of confidence? Suffering too much pain in the process of getting the writing done?

get me to write

What does it take to get me to write?

•  For me, the first answer to this question that came to my head was not actually an answer to this question, the answer to another question "how does it feel to start writing – especially after not writing?" ...  in fact, I started the morning saying, " I don't want to get up," In spite of the fact that I set up the morning to be the start of regular writing sessions. It was just a sense of dread at the many piles of  writing projects that I have in my head to do, they haven't even begun to start.  Being overwhelmed and accompanied by a sense of dread and not ever getting those projects done.
• I sort of seemed deadline focused, so
• external forces
• on top of that I, have to fight to create and manage a workspace . . . seems that Korea doesn't have as much space as one might get in other countries . . .  or at least that I am not paid enough to purchase that space at the local prices ;)
• and then I have my own list of starting rituals that I have to run through. always the coffee has to be made ... yesterday the dishes needed to be washes and something else--although it would be fair to say that in part I have to do something just to get awake enough to start working.  today I tried to prepare by washing the dishes the night before, but they needed to have themselves put away before I could start and the vacuuming robot demanded that I set it up to sweep the floors and that in turn needed the drying laundry to be re-situated and the that caused the fern to be tipped over and that needed sweeping and cleaning and replanting before I could sit down. 
• beyond that the distractions themselves can lie in the very device that I need to use to do the writing that I wish to do.  game this, social media that (am I avoiding naming facebook?)